It helps to think of Three Wolf Moon as something like an old Native legend and not, as you might be immediately tempted to do, an homage to Three Dog Night or the ironic, cult-folk t-shirt design (which I’m afraid it is). That way, when you drink in its hazy, star-filled, electric splendor, you can stare at the sky for hours with nothing but an affinity for wandering spirits in your mind. Indeed, W is a three-song brain-tickler, a delicate odyssey of garage-psych obsessed with alphabetical stress, and its trio of doubled-yous (“Water/Wine,” “Wetbrain,” “The Worst”) are indelible gifts of indie-freak you won’t soon forget. You know, there’s no reason this Canadian band, which features members of Black Wizard, If We Are Machines, and The Best Revenge, can’t run with the likes of Black Mountain and Weird Owl to whatever cosmic finish line awaits ‘em. And I’ll be on the sidelines doing my part by handing out the Kool-Aid when they pass by…and wearing that t-shirt, no doubt.
Listen to W (and download it for free) right here!
The Low Anthem have a real knack for choking me up before the first song on their albums is even halfway over. First it was “The Ballad of the Broken Bones” on 2007′s What the Crow Brings, then it was (arguably the most gorgeous of all of The Low Anthem’s songs) “Charlie Darwin” from 2008-09′s Oh My God, Charlie Darwin, and now it’s “Ghost Woman Blues” (originally written by George Carter) from their latest album, Smart Flesh. Simply put, the indie Rhode Island band instills a breathless yearning into their music that rivals any other kind of emotional response you will get from any other kind of music. And it’s not just the haunting piano ballads, either. The power of their softness carries itself throughout each of their albums, but never has it been more prominent than it is on Smart Flesh, where even the country-folk of “Apothecary Love” and brassy flare of “Boeing 737″ evoke the same visceral response as the soul-touching songs “Love and Altar” and “Matter of Time.” That probably has something to do with the band recording this album over a three month span in an abandoned pasta sauce factory, the affects of that particular environment no doubt enhancing their preferred lonesome-but-beautiful, weepy mustache, Sunday morning, old-timey aesthetic and love for influences like Tom Waits (“Smart Flesh”), Bob Dylan (“Hey, All You Hippies!”), and Leonard Cohen (“Burn”). Genuinely amazing and poignant stuff from The Low Anthem that will leave you reeling once again.
Check out TWO videos for “Ghost Woman Blues” and “Boeing 737″ from Smart Flesh!
D.S. Yancey Salt the Earth & Fill Your Hands
Thinker Thought Records
So, who the hell is D.S. Yancey? Well, he’s a trucker. Actually, he’s a trucker with an acoustic guitar and a harmonica, so I guess that makes him a blue collar troubadour of sorts. He’s the kind of bare naked and broken folk singer who tells stories of love, loss, and the people and places who fill the American landscape. Salt the Earth & Fill Your Hands, the Phoenix singer’s second album, is a musical travelogue, a bittersweet scrapbook filled with heroes, losers, Jesus, hard times, bad luck, the rape of the land, life on the road, and the belief that the oft-dismal pursuit of the American dream means just gettin’ by as best you can. The songs ramble with a country n’ punk soul, Yancey’s voice straining with the emotion of a man who’s seen it all but is still struggling to understand it, and, despite their occasions of misanthropy (or perhaps because of them), provide an abundance of comfort in their dusty truth. If he hasn’t yet, Yancey really ought to be mentioned in the same breath as singer/songwriters like Tim Barry, Chuck Ragan, Cranford Nix, and Jay Bennett. D.S. Yancey, then, is a trucker with an acoustic guitar and a harmonica, headed down the highway that leads to glory.
Listen to “Barstow To Vegas” from Salt the Earth & Fill Your Hands!
Three Wolf Moon
The Low Anthem
D.S. Yancey